This invention relates generally to portable conveyors or transportation units for injured or impaired persons and particularly to those formed of a soft fabric material.
One of the most difficult aspects of patient care and treating of persons at the scene of injury or the like imposed upon medical practitioners is the movement or handling of the patients themselves. Practitioners are required in many circumstances to transfer impaired or injured persons between one resting place or another or, in some instances, transport an injured person from an accident environment to a portable bed or stretcher or the like.
The difficulties of moving people and transferring them from one support surface to the other is often exacerbated by the size and weight of the individual as well as restricted or cramped working area. in addition, there often exists a very real possibility of causing further injury or aggravating existing injuries in the movement process.
All this combines to make the movement and transfer of injured or impaired persons difficult, strenuous and exacting for medical practitioners and emergency response personnel.
Practitioners in the art have attempted to respond to this is need by providing some type of transport system for laterally shifting an individual. Such devices have included mechanized beds and stretchers which are often power driven and which may be adjusted to a variety of heights. often such devices are integrally related to support apparatus such as transportation vehicles and ambulances or the like. Such apparatus, however, are relatively cumbersome and complex and are often unsuited for certain lifting and transferring operations which need nonetheless to be performed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,051,565 issued to Berge sets forth a MAT CONVEYOR which provides a lightweight, portable conveyor or transportation unit for moving heavy or fragile objects and which is particularly suited for the movement of injured humans as between supporting carriers, such as hospital emergency carts or tables, and a patient bed, or vice versa. The transportation unit comprises an open-ended, flexible tube-like member, the flexible walls of which collapse inwardly to form a double layer mat having a wear-resistant exterior layer or surface composed of tough flexible material and which may include an under cushion for the support of the patient""s body. An inner layer or lining of flexible material having a low coefficient of friction is laminated coextensively over the inner face of the exterior layer. Objects are placed on the upper face of the mat and is transported over an undersupporting surface by moving the collapsed flexible walls of the tube transversely of the tubular axis with the interengaged opposing surfaces of the slippery interior lining providing a desired low friction interface between the object and undersupporting surface.
While the foregoing described prior art devices have served certain needs and have improved the capability of medical practitioners and emergency response personnel in lifting or transferring patients under various conditions, there remains nonetheless a continuing need in the art for evermore improved flexible and inexpensive conveyor or transportation devices to meet the variety of circumstances in which such devices must be employed.
Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide an improved mat conveyor having greater flexibility of use. It is a more particular object of the present invention to provide an improved mat conveyor having a plurality of handle devices to aid in the lifting and transport of injured or impaired persons.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided for use in lifting and moving a person, a conveyor comprises: an elongated tubular member formed of a flexible material and defining an interior surface and an exterior surface; and a plurality of flexible handle members disposed upon the exterior surface each defining a closed handle loop secured to the exterior surface at two attachment points, the handle members being distributed about the exterior surface such that at least two of the handle members remain accessible as the tubular member is rolled laterally in a generally flattened configuration.